ABOUT ⏤
A VOICE WITH SOMETHING TO SAY.
BARITONE | ARTIST | STORYTELLER
A VOICE WITH SOMETHING TO SAY.
BARITONE | ARTIST | STORYTELLER
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Acclaimed for ‘full-bodied and broad’ theatrical instincts communicated with ‘arching legato phrases,’ American baritone Brian Major continues to forge his own path in building a career of compelling artistic diversity. Winner of the 2022 Sullivan Foundation Award, he has garnered an array of prestigious prizes, notably including recognitions in Harold Haugh Opera Vocal Competition, Opera at San Nicola Vocal Competition, Atlantic Music Club Vocal Competition, Palm Beach Atlantic Vocal Competition, and the vocal competitions of Opera Ebony, Annapolis Opera, and Harlem Opera Theater. In the 2025 – 2026 Season, Brian returns to the Metropolitan Opera, both to reprise the rôle of his 2022 company debut, Barone Douphol in Verdi’s La traviata, and to cover Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, a part that he previously essayed with Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance initiative. Spring 2026 also brings a performance of the concert suite from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with Latonia Moore and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and his début with Opera Philadelphia as the Court Poet in Spears’s Sleepers Awake. Hailed for his emotional depth and indomitable stage presence, Brian has performed in many of the world’s most renowned venues and with ensembles including the Atlanta, Columbus, and Schenectady Symphony Orchestras. He was tapped to create or cover parts in the world premières of Steve Wallace’s chamber opera Undying Love with Chicago-based Hearing in Color and Gregory Spears’s Castor and Patience with Cincinnati Opera, and the rôle of Gary in Douglas Pew’s Penny took him to Opera Grand Rapids. Brian’s tenure on the Metropolitan Opera roster is comprised of critically-lauded performances |
Nabucco ⎜ Savonlinna Opera Festival
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as a Stimme der Wächter in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and Captain Gardiner in Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick. In addition to these parts, he has covered the rôle of Benny ‘Kid’ Paret in Champion and the eponymous protagonist in Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.
Brian’s Mozart repertoire consists of Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, rôles in which he made his respective company débuts with Opera Roanoke and the Schenectady Symphony. His inaugural engagement with Boston Lyric Opera was as Emile Griffith in Terence Blanchard’s Champion. Puccini portrayals to date encompass Marcello and Schaunard in La bohème, the former with Toledo Opera and Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera and the latter with the Columbus Symphony, Scarpia in Tosca with Santa Fe Opera, and the titular schemer in Gianni Schicchi.
Initiating him into one of opera’s most selective fraternities, Brian excels at breathing new life into Giuseppe Verdi’s baritone rôles. In additional to Barone Douphol, sung for both the Met and Madison Opera, he débuted at the Princeton Festival as Giorgio Germont in La traviata, also singing the part with Opera Company of Middlebury. Sarasota Opera’s Verdi series gave him the opportunity to sing Ezio in Attila, and Maryland Lyric Opera’s Falstaff was graced by his first performance of the mistrustful husband Ford. Teatro Municipal de São Paulo hosted his début as the troubled Babylonian king in Nabucco.
It is as Amonasro, the beleaguered king of Ethiopia in Aida, that Brian has most endeared himself to audiences and critics throughout the world, not least in his South American début at Teatro Municipal de São Paulo. He has donned Amonasro’s tattered robes with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Carolina, Opera Columbus, Opera Maine, and Opera Theatre of the Rockies, his portrayal for the last of which companies elicited praise for his ‘honey-filled voice’ and ‘organic dramatic expression.’
On the concert stage, Brian has been heard in performances of pieces ranging from Händel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah to Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with organizations of the caliber of Colorado College’s Summer Musical Festival. Particular praise greeted his singing in Kirke Mechem’s Songs of the Slave at Boston Symphony Hall, celebrating the hundredth performance of the work. Also a committed recitalist, he enriched his repertoire with Speak Low, a programme of songs by Kurt Weill for Lyric Fest, Opera Delaware’s Shakespeare in Song, and an October 2025 recital for Trinity Solebury.
Molding the foundation of his technique through formal study, Brian earned degrees from Morehouse College, Boston University, and Michigan State University, his work at the last of which culminating in completion of his Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance degree. Now integrating his educational grounding with knowledge acquired through experience, he nurtures the development of emerging talents via teaching engagements, to which he brings an unextinguishable passion for integrating strong vocal technique with uncompromising artistic integrity.
Brian’s Mozart repertoire consists of Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, rôles in which he made his respective company débuts with Opera Roanoke and the Schenectady Symphony. His inaugural engagement with Boston Lyric Opera was as Emile Griffith in Terence Blanchard’s Champion. Puccini portrayals to date encompass Marcello and Schaunard in La bohème, the former with Toledo Opera and Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera and the latter with the Columbus Symphony, Scarpia in Tosca with Santa Fe Opera, and the titular schemer in Gianni Schicchi.
Initiating him into one of opera’s most selective fraternities, Brian excels at breathing new life into Giuseppe Verdi’s baritone rôles. In additional to Barone Douphol, sung for both the Met and Madison Opera, he débuted at the Princeton Festival as Giorgio Germont in La traviata, also singing the part with Opera Company of Middlebury. Sarasota Opera’s Verdi series gave him the opportunity to sing Ezio in Attila, and Maryland Lyric Opera’s Falstaff was graced by his first performance of the mistrustful husband Ford. Teatro Municipal de São Paulo hosted his début as the troubled Babylonian king in Nabucco.
It is as Amonasro, the beleaguered king of Ethiopia in Aida, that Brian has most endeared himself to audiences and critics throughout the world, not least in his South American début at Teatro Municipal de São Paulo. He has donned Amonasro’s tattered robes with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Carolina, Opera Columbus, Opera Maine, and Opera Theatre of the Rockies, his portrayal for the last of which companies elicited praise for his ‘honey-filled voice’ and ‘organic dramatic expression.’
On the concert stage, Brian has been heard in performances of pieces ranging from Händel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah to Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with organizations of the caliber of Colorado College’s Summer Musical Festival. Particular praise greeted his singing in Kirke Mechem’s Songs of the Slave at Boston Symphony Hall, celebrating the hundredth performance of the work. Also a committed recitalist, he enriched his repertoire with Speak Low, a programme of songs by Kurt Weill for Lyric Fest, Opera Delaware’s Shakespeare in Song, and an October 2025 recital for Trinity Solebury.
Molding the foundation of his technique through formal study, Brian earned degrees from Morehouse College, Boston University, and Michigan State University, his work at the last of which culminating in completion of his Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance degree. Now integrating his educational grounding with knowledge acquired through experience, he nurtures the development of emerging talents via teaching engagements, to which he brings an unextinguishable passion for integrating strong vocal technique with uncompromising artistic integrity.
